James Franklin played through pain last year—both of the emotional and physical variety.

His coach gave him the side-eye. His shoulder gave him fits. And his team failed to prove it was up for playing in college football’s premier conference.

It’s now spring and by the sounds of it, things aren’t necessarily looking up for Franklin. Gary Pinkel says the Missouri quarterback competition is pretty much a three-man race. Franklin’s the incumbent, a rising senior who once was touted as a potentially dynamic dual-threat.

“If you have a returning veteran starter like James a year ago, he was healthy going into the spring, and he came off a year with (21) touchdown passes, 15 rushing, MVP of the bowl game, he comes in and he’s going to be with the ones…Whoever’s No. 2 can certainly beat him out. It doesn’t mean he keeps his job, but he comes in with that status.

“In this situation, without what I’d call the term 'an established quarterback,' we pretty much will, with those top three guys, go even reps with ones, twos, threes and keep rolling them right through. That’s how we’ve always handled that.”

That was no less subtle than Pinkel’s remarks last September after Franklin injured his shoulder against Georgia. Then, the coach said Franklin took himself out of the game and refused painkillers.

Pinkel acknowledges Franklin was playing hurt, but also shared that Franklin at times didn’t practice or play well.

“I’ve coached the position for a long time, and I’ve never had a quarterback get beat up like he did. Tears his labrum, comes back, reinjures his shoulder in that joint, has strained ligaments in his knee and can’t play a couple weeks, has a concussion that keeps him out," he told the Columbia Tribune.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. In 34 or 35 years of coaching college football, never even came close to seeing anything like it. To say you can evaluate his performance, we’re not going to evaluate his performance as a player. He didn’t play as well, but he was also hurt and missed half the season.”